The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams

Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026--San Antonio

I really don't quite know how to describe The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams, a novel that has been longlisted for this year's Booker Prize.  It seems to be filled with metaphors and is set in a declining university city located in a lush climate with buildings decaying and the plants rapidly taking over the city and suffering from population loss.  It is contrasted with a modern dynamic city built in a dessert and filled with shiny skyscrapers where some of the characters are from and where many locals would rather live.  Agathe, the main character is a university drop-out who was likely the most intelligent student at the university.  Her family has been decaying much as the city where she lives.  Her mother attempted suicide when she was a child; her father, a former member of the faculty, is disgusted with her and has built his academic success on writing lots of novels in which he, she, and her mother are the central characters; and she has lived most of her life with her uncle remaining estranged from her father and her mother.  She works for a professor in which she has secretly taken over most of the professor's university duties--planning the syllabi and the lessons, marking and grading the papers the students submit, etc., and is happy living a quiet, isolated life where she is paid well for her work without needing any recognition for it.  An event has taken place at the university where a graduate student named Adam has come in conflict during a lecture period with a professor from a minority background named Jacob--each having offended the other with name-calling at the end of the conflict, so the university community is in an uproar regarding who was in the wrong and what to do about it.  The professor who employs Agathe is on the side of Adam since they both are outsiders from the modern city in the desert (and also because she seems to have a crush on him).  Most of the university administration seem to be on the side of Jacob.  The professor asks Agathe to establish a relationship with Adam to try to learn more about the event, how he feels about the situation, and what is currently happening.  In the meantime, the decaying of the city is increasing rapidly, especially since the gardeners have gone on strike for not being appreciated or paid enough.  They march in protest in rows and columns much like a military brigade.  So what is the book really about since almost everything seems to be a metaphor for something else?  I can't tell you for sure.  What I can say, is that it is set in modern times (maybe even slightly in the future).  There has always been a power conflict between the city and the university.  Climate change is definitely happending.  The university seems to have adopted a progressive posture--admitting more minorities and international students and trying to uphold standards designed to protect feelings--but it has also failed to maintain the qualities that have made it one of the top universities in the world, since there seems to be grade inflation, faculty being lax in maintaining teaching standards, students hiring others to do their required assignments for themselves, etc.  So the city is falling apart, the university is falling apart, and society is falling apart.  Is it a prediction for the near future?  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026--San Antonio

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout is a great novel which is longlisted for the Booker Prize.  (It's the fifth book I have read by her and all of them have been well worth reading.)  It's my opinion that in a way, the book is about changes occurring that seem to represent the beginning of the end of civilization as we have known it.  But it is told by showcasing a central character, who is a simple but great man--a man who is respected and liked, who is a kind and good person, and who is a high school history teacher--Mr. Dam (called affectionately Damn-Dam by his students).  Events taking place mostly in the fall of 2024 (in his personal life, in his classroom, within his family, and within the country) illustrate the changes taking place. Open confrontation, cursing, and name-calling are replacing civil discourse and niceties within society.  Dam recognizes this and is puzzled by it.  He keeps questioning:  Do we really have free will?  It's a question that goes two directions:  If we do, why do we choose to make negative changes in life?  If we don't, could that be why things are changing?  But he is also learning that life is hard, that people have secrets, that having certain knowledges can be depressing.  And he is learning that everyone he knows is different in ways from what he thinks they are like because of their secrets in their lives.  Even Damn-Dam has a few critical secrets in himself.  It's a short book that can be read quickly, but one worth reading.  I gave the book 5 stars out of 5.

So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder

Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026--San Antonio

So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder was a chore for me to get through.  Its characters are rather obnoxious most of the time.  Supposedly, they are friends for life after graduating from ("Not State" which their college shirts say to emphasize they are all so intelligent that they got into the University of Pennsylvania--an Ivy League school).  They all move to the "IT city" (New York) after graduation.  They pursue the "correct" career paths, try to impress each other with who have have met or seen in the city and by getting invited to the best parties, and by spending more money than they are making on the most trendy items at each moment in time.  The book covers them over the years as jobs change, as couples come together/break up, as marriages occur and children become centerpieces in their lives, as they observe or learn of cheating by their partners, as some leave the city to live elsewhere, and as each time they come together there are arguments and fall-outs among them.  By the end of the book, most of them have not been speaking to each other for some time.  Does any of that sound like a novel anyone would love to read?  Of course as the reader, I could see the mistakes happening as they occurred and could figure out the regrets that would develop over time.  And at the end, there are indications that some mistakes might be overcome, but the book stops there.  So the big question becomes, will they continue living their miserable lives as they have so far (failing at truly being friends or being happy) or will a few of them be able to make corrections in life and find happiness they might already have had for 25 years if they truly had been intelligent in the beginning.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.

The Midnight Train by Matt Haig

Tuesday, Aug. 25. 2026--San Antonio

I recently read the preceding novel to this second of two books.  I did not like that first novel much.  The Midnight Train by the same author, Matt Haig, is a much better book.  There is a common theme in both books; one based on wanting to live a better life.  In this one the story is about a man who has great regrets.  He has died and is being taken on a ride to review his whole life with the promise of entering eternity at the end of the ride.  During the ride, he sees flashes of events passing and watches a photograph on the wall of the train car of himself aging in relation to the time of the events.  He is being guided by a woman he knew as a child and has been dead herself for many years. She has volunteered from within her eternity to guide him to his own.  Occasionally, the train stops at the more important events in his life so he can observe and, therefore, relive them.  Unfortunately, the most important events in anyone's life include both the best ones and the worst ones.  So the train ride is both positive and punishing.  During each stop, he is actually observing rather than reliving each event, so he gets to notice things that he hadn't in real life--aspects of events he hadn't noticed and actions byboth him and others and their reactions to them.  He knows from the beginning that he has made mistakes in life and regrets them and their consequences, but observing these events allows him to start to notice when wrong turns were taking place--when he made poor decisions and when those he loved reacted negatively to them.  He wishes he had lived his life differently and begins questionning whether it is too late to do anything about it.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Kin by Tayari Jones

Friday, Aug. 21, 2026--San Antonio

Kin by Tayari Jones is a novel set in the South during the 1960s--beginning in a small Louisiana town where the two main characters are Black females who have been best friends all their lives.  One was raised by her aunt after her father killed his wife and himself just a month after the baby was born.  The other was raised by her grandmother after her unmarried mother left just after giving birth.  Most of the book takes place during the 3 years following their graduation from high school when their lives go separate directions.  Niecie leaves home to attend Spelman College in Atlanta, and Annie leaves home to go to Memphis to try to find her mother (after having been given an address where she might be living).  The young women stay in touch through letters as events in their new lives unfold.  The car that Annie and 3 friends are driving to Memphis breaks down, and they find themselves living and working by barter on a former sharecropper farm which is now a whorehouse with the women each having one of the former sharecropper shacks for hosting their johns.  Niecie finds her plans for trying to easily fit in at Spelman derailed when she accidentally takes a seat in the last row of the white section of the bus (thinking it to be the first row of the Colored section) to take her to Atlanta and the driver kicks her off the bus.  He leaves with her luggage holding the wardrobe she had prepared for college still on the bus to be lost forever.  Life can be difficult for everyone after leaving their hometown, and both young women are learning this quickly.  This was the period of uproar involving protests, forced desegregation, and upset people on both sides of the color divide in the South.  The fact that the Supreme Court had made their ruling did not change things overnight.  There are ups and downs in the lives of both girls during the next 3+ years--more ups in Niecie's life and more downs in Annie's, but their friendship holds throughout it.  As the reader, you get to live through it all with the both of them.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Villa Coco by Sean Greer

Monday, Aug. 17, 2026--San Antonio

Villa Coco by Sean Greer was a fun novel to read.  A young American college graduate with a degree in archiving and no idea of how he is going to earn a living from it, is informed by his professor that a baronessa in Tuscany is looking for someone to archive every item in her home by December and will pay for his travel there and for him to do the job.  He arrives to find that things are not exactly what he expected.  The baronessa is a bit querky and expects him to do other things, too, including to help bring in the olive harvest during the week prior to their scheduled time for bringing it to the olive presser.  Plus, she has friends who keep coming for visits that delay his work--an Italian princessa, and old friend who was a "business" partner in her early adult life and is her best friend.  A woman who is half Algerian lives down the road and is her closest friend; we learn late in the novel the unique reason they know each other.  We also learn that the baronessa may have other secrets in her past life and definitely has a secret about what is going to happen in December.  A nephew of the baronessa who came to live with her for a year as a teenager is also part of the story.  He is now married, but when he shows up at the villa, he and the young student (close in age) find themselves attracted to each other.  So a secondary story runs along with that of the baronessa regarding the expectations of each of the men about what would be a good life if they want to have a long-term relationship.  But the biggest surprise of all is kept until the very end of the novel.  What has the baronessa been planning?  Will this conservative young student who has done her archiving return to his life in America?  What has been behing everything that has been happening?  And what will the future hold for all of the characters in the story?  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Open Era by Edward Schmit

Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026--San Antonio

 The Open Era by Edward Schmit is a romance novel building on the success of Heated Rivalry which I read when it was first published and before it became the popular TV series that it is now.  Instead of the story of two hockey players, this book is built around two tennis players.  One has entered the pre-playoffs at the US Open Championship.  If he wins the pre-playoffs, he will automatically become an official candidate in the championship playoffs which will access to the big money of the highest levels of professional tennis.  Lots of attention is on him because of being the first openly gay player in professional tennis.  The other player is the #2 ranked tennis player in the world.  In Heated Rivalry, the two hockey players started a secret relationship while being drafted within the highest professional hockey league and planned their careers around being able to maintain that relationship while pretending to be straight in public.  In this book, everyone knows that Austin Hardy is gay.  But Austin and everyone else wonders why Diego Cruz is obviously being very friendly with him.  Another difference between the characters of the two books is that the players in the hockey story have been actively gay, but closeted, for years before they ever meet.  In this book, Austin has only had one brief relationship as a teenager and has not been sexually active since then even thought he is publicly out as a gay man.  Diego supposedly has never been active in a gay sense.  So do not expect as much sex as there was in the hockey book.  Instead, this is more of a will they/won't they romance story with lots of "hickups" stalling the possibilities in a repeating start/stop narrative.  It's a decent book worth reading to make your own decision of whether they should end up together or just enjoy what they can while it lasts.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.